Beat Procrastination Today

If you’re procrastinating about starting something, finishing something, or just doing those tasks that you know you should do, but don’t want to or don’t have to, this is called procrastination.

What we want to do is get you to finish everything you start, and if you didn’t finish something that means it simply wasn’t important but being in that middle state, that middle ground where you have incompletes is not very fun. So to beat procrastination, establish quiet focus, use habits to your advantage and give yourself reinforcing rewards.

It sounds like common sense but it’s true, if you want to get things done and overcome procrastination, you need quiet and you need focus. That means that if you’re family is always getting in your way of getting things done then find a quiet place to build your website or write your book. Have office hours or quiet time. Maybe get everything done in the morning so that you can give 100% to your business and then 100% to your family. Close off all unnecessary windows and browser tabs, you don’t need to have your email, your phone, and your Facebook pages all open at the same time.

Do yourself a favor and close these things out for 30 minutes, and during that 30 minutes do nothing else but the task at hand, write the chapter of that book, record those videos, or write those articles, and once you’re done now you can reward yourself by going back to those fun or time-wasting activities.

There’s no point in doing nothing in life but working, what you need to do is have focus, repeat those money-making tasks, and then reward yourself once you’re done.

By rewarding yourself, you’re reinforcing that positive behavior – and let me explain. If you don’t have these habits, if you leave Facebook or you leave your phone on all the time then you’re feeling good about being interrupted. Think about it, let’s say we’re writing an article and your phone lit up and you had a new Facebook message from an old friend. Now you’re feeling good about connecting with someone and almost relieved that you don’t have to finish this article. You’re feeling good about being interrupted, about being unproductive.

On the other hand, if you close down all distractions, and then finish your articles then go check your phone and find the message from that long-lost friend, now you have won and killed two birds with one stone.

You completed your tasks, you feel good about getting everything done and you now had your reward of socializing and doing these other non-making-money activities.